Applied Verbal Antagonism
by The Paperback Righter
Summary: "The only people who go to Britta for therapy are those who don't want to change. Evil Abed never left."


Annie pushed open the door to her shared apartment, picked up the grocery bag she'd left on the floor, and carried it inside. A low murmuring came from the blanket fort which she recognised as the sound of the television. Dumping the bag on the kitchen counter, she walked over and poked her head into the fort.  
"Hey, guys, I..."  
Her voice trailed off as she realised the fort was empty. Her eyes flicked to the TV – one of Troy and Abed's old shows was playing, Battletrek or something.  
"I've always enjoyed this episode."  
She jumped and turned around at the sound of Abed's voice directly behind her.  
"Abed, I didn't hear you..."  
Annie's voice trailed off again and her mouth went dry. Abed was stood in front of her, an unnatural smile on his face, and a patch of felt plastered around it. She hadn't seen him like this before, but both Britta and Abed himself had told her enough for her to recognise Abed's evil persona on sight.  
"It's good to see you understand. I had hoped you'd get the reference."  
His voice was different, somehow. He still sounded like Abed, but it was Abed playing a part, and his words were underlined with a smugness that didn't suit him. He tilted his head a little and narrowed his eyes.  
"You aren't going to stay silent, are you? That takes all the fun out of it."  
"I... you..."  
Annie paused and took a calming breath, carefully holding eye contact with him.  
"What's the big idea, Abed?" she asked, forcing confidence into her voice.  
He rolled his eyes.  
"You know what the idea is, Annie. I'm just like the Abed you know, but not lame."  
"Abed, if this is supposed to be a joke-"  
"Joke? Oh no, Annie, this isn't a joke. This is how things are now."  
Abed's voice carried a hint of malice which was beginning to panic Annie.  
"We got over this, Abed. You thought you were, y'know, but then you got Wingered, and now Britta's been helping you though things."  
Abed's smile cracked and he barked out a laugh.  
"Oh please. The only people who go to Britta for therapy are those who don't want to change. Evil Abed never left."  
Annie flinched and she broke eye contact.  
"So now you believe me. Good."  
"You're a good person, Abed."  
Annie looked back at Abed and forced a smile. Abed frowned and tilted his head again.  
"Do you really think that?"  
Annie let out the breath she hadn't realised she was holding and smiled genuinely.  
"Of course I do."  
"Huh."  
Abed paused, before suddenly jerking his head up and taking a step forward. Annie flinched back. Abed's smile returned.  
"Of course you don't. Because I'm not. None of us are."  
Annie swallowed nervously and her eyes flicked to the door.  
"Considering escaping?" Abed asked, his eyes s fixed on hers. "Or maybe you just want to call for help. But you left your phone in the kitchen, didn't you?"  
"I... can deal with this. On my own."  
"You don't believe that, Annie."  
He turned his head slightly, surveying the apartment with a brief glance, before looking back at Annie again.  
"It's right there, on the counter. I'm the only thing standing in your way. Go ahead. Call Jeff."  
Annie took another breath and took a step forward. Abed's hand shot out in an instant and his fingers curled around her right wrist.  
"Let go of me, Abed."  
"Make me."  
Her mind flashed back to the self-defence class she'd taken in her second year. Not that she wanted to hurt Abed, but it was safer than letting him run wild: after all, he's almost mutilated Jeff only a few months prior. She swung her left arm around, but as she did so Abed twisted his hand and a sharp pain shot through her right arm. She let out a small yelp and felt her legs give out underneath her. Abed's grip vanished from her arm, and she found herself crumpled on the floor, suddenly breathless. Abed squatted in front of her and took her by the chin, tilting her head up to catch her eye.  
"Unlucky."

A minute passed in near silence. Abed had let Annie's head drop, but his eyes never lost contact with hers as she lay panting on the floor, propping herself up on her hands.  
"I know you're a good person," Annie said finally. "Whatever this is, this... character you're playing, I know that Abed is in there, and that he's good. He's nice."  
Abed shook his head slightly.  
"No matter how hard you try to convince yourself, it won't be true. What's good about Abed? He lives his life through a filter of TV and movies. He doesn't see you as a person. To him, you're just a mixture of tropes and clichés. No-one's unique in his eyes. All you are is a rehash of a character that Firefly did better in a way lamer setting. He connects with you less than he does with the cast of Cougar Town, because he knows that no matter what happens in that world, he doesn't have to be involved. He's an observer in a setting that demands involvement, and there's nothing good in that."  
"Is that what you told him? Is that how you convinced him to play along with this character?"  
Abed smirked and took Annie's chin, tilting her head up again.  
"That's only the tip of the iceberg. We're all big boiling pots of fears and flaws, and it only takes a nudge to push us over the edge. Sure, you think you can keep everything hidden, but when you're aware, really aware, of everything you're ignoring about your life... it sends most people insane. At least, it sent you insane."  
Annie opened her mouth to respond, but the words caught in her throat and nothing came out. Abed tilted his head the other way.  
"Right here, last year. Housewarming. Jeff rolls the die to see who gets the pizza, and it lands on Troy. He doesn't want to miss anything, so he runs, and wouldn't you know it, he knocks the Indiana Jones diorama, and the boulder starts rolling. You stand up, slip on the boulder, drop your bag... and your gun shoots Pierce."  
Abed leaned in and pressed his forehead against Annie's, his eyes locked on hers.  
"And just like that, you killed Pierce."  
"I..." Annie's voice caught again. "But I didn't."  
"You did in my timeline. And that was all it took. The group was broken, and you lost it. And after that, you only lasted about a month."  
Annie jerked her head away from him, her breathing laboured again.  
"Stop it, Abed!" she snapped. Abed smirked and reached out a hand, grabbing her by the hair this time.  
"Does that frighten you, Annie?" he asked, wrenching her head back to face him. "One small, random chance was enough to completely destroy you. And now you know that, what's going to keep you going?"  
"My... friends..."  
"Your friends? Our little study group? But you broke them, Annie. Pierce died, Jeff lost an arm, Troy lost his voice. Shirley practically drank herself to death."  
"What about... what happened to Britta?"  
Abed's mouth twisted back into a smirk.  
"Britta didn't change. There was no way to make her worse."  
His grip loosened and Annie's head drooped again. For a moment, her breathing was the only audible sound. She raised her head again.  
"You can't say that," Annie said, a little confidence returning to her voice. "You're talking like you know everything, but you don't. You're just trying to upset me."  
"Am I?" Abed shot back. His eyes burned into hers and she averted her gaze.  
"Look at me, Annie!" Abed snapped. Almost without meaning to, she looked back at him.  
"If I was just trying to upset you, I could have said much worse things to you, and you would've broken already. No... I'm telling you the truth. That's all I need. I'm telling you that you're a weak, stupid, pathetic excuse for a human being who can't get though life without someone telling her what to do. Ever since you were a child, you've been following someone who didn't care about you, trying to get their attention, desperately hoping that if you could make some kind of impression on them, they'd actually give a crap about you. You spent years pining after Troy before he even realised you existed, and that was only because you were hopped up on drugs and ran though a glass wall. And even after that, you still followed him to one of the worst colleges in the country because you knew no-one that knew you would have any chance of caring about you."  
"That's..."  
"The only thing he knew about you was that you were a psycho, but that was enough for you if it meant he'd noticed. You aren't even looking for someone to love you. You dream of finding a caring, gentle man, but your dream is just another lie you tell yourself, because you don't want to accept the fact that you want a bastard. You wanted Troy because he was eye-candy, not because he was a nice guy. You barely talked to him in all those years you fantasised about him. And then when you got to Greendale, you found out that there were bigger bastards out there in the form of one Jeff Winger. He took two years to even list your number in his phone under Annie, instead of 'Study Group Brunette'. After everything you went through together, he didn't care enough about you to list you by name. And that just made you want him more."  
"Jeff _is_ nice to me!"  
"You were even attracted to me, sometimes. When I was Don Draper, or Han Solo, or some other jerk who didn't want you for anything more than a half-hour in bed, then you were interested, because you were getting some attention. I've spent ten minutes breaking your spirit, but if I told you now that I was going to sleep with you, you'd stop trying to fight me."  
Abed broke eye contact and stood up. He took a step back toward the kitchen, grabbing Annie's phone from the counter.  
"Maybe you should call Jeff. Tell him that little Annie Adderall has broken again. She needs her big strong man to come and fix her."  
He threw the phone to the floor in front of her.  
"Call him."  
His eyes pierced into hers as she put a hand on the phone and picked it up. Her thumb found the keypad and slid naturally onto the right button.  
Time passed, and the phone fell from her hand as a low sob erupted from her.  
"But you can't, can you? You're worried that if you call him, he's just going to confirm everything I've said. You'd prefer to live a lie because you know that if you found the truth, you wouldn't be able to  
keep going."  
Annie didn't respond. A tear rolled down her face and splashed on the tiled floor. Abed took a step forward and grabbed her hair again, pulling her to her feet.  
"I'm going to take you to your room now," he said slowly, holding her head just in front of his face. "Then I'm going to leave. I'll let you think about what we've discussed. If you need anything after that... it's right there on your bed."


End file.
